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La Quête Sans Fin De Philip K. Dick, Explorateur Des Cosmos Privés Hervé Lagoguey Inventer des mondes pour tenter de comprendre le monde : la quête sans fin de Philip K. Dick, explorateur des cosmos privés Hervé Lagoguey To cite this version: Hervé Lagoguey. Inventer des mondes pour tenter de comprendre le monde : la quête sans fin de Philip K. Dick, explorateur des cosmos privés. Cultural Express [en ligne], CHELEBOURG Christian, FREYHEIT Matthieu, PIEGAY Victor-Arthur, 2019. hal-02549850 HAL Id: hal-02549850 https://hal.univ-reims.fr/hal-02549850 Submitted on 22 Apr 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Inventer des mondes pour tenter de comprendre le monde : la quête sans fin de Philip K. Dick, explorateur des cosmos privés Hervé Lagoguey CIRLEP Université de Reims Champagne Ardenne Introduction : des influences, un marché, des intentions Comme pour tous les auteurs, mais d’une façon certainement plus exacerbée, chez Philip K. Dick la création de mondes fictionnels repose sur des paramètres qui lui sont propres et qu’en principe il contrôle, et d’autres, extérieurs, sur lesquels il n’a pas prise. Nous commencerons donc par donner quelques repères qui permettront de voir comment s’est construit ce créateur de mondes, et qui constituent en quelque sorte la genèse de l’univers dickien. Jeune écrivain de science-fiction publiant sa première nouvelle en 1952 (« Roog »), Dick est d’abord conditionné par l’héritage classique du genre. Parmi les auteurs qui l’ont influencé, on note Bradbury et bien sûr Van Vogt, l’auteur de The World of Null-A (1948), roman à propos duquel Dick déclarait : Je trouvais que ça avait une qualité prophétique ; c’est de là que m’est venue l’idée d’une mystérieuse qualité de l’univers qui pouvait être abordée dans la science- fiction. Ce que j’apercevais vaguement était une sorte de monde métaphysique, un royaume invisible de choses à peine entrevues1. La réalité derrière le voile, ce sera évidemment le thème majeur de Dick, fan avoué de science- fiction, mais aussi grand amateur de Platon, de l’allégorie de la Caverne et des philosophes présocratiques. Il y a d’un côté un auteur en herbe qui veut placer ses écrits, et de l’autre un marché qui répond aux lois de l’offre et de la demande. Dick est attiré par les récits étranges, le fantastique, voire la fantasy2, il n’est pas fasciné par la science. Mais le fantastique s’essouffle ; pour preuve, le déclin des pulps dédiés au genre : Unknown n’existe plus depuis 1943 et Weird Tales s’arrête en 1954. John W. Campbell règne en maître sur la revue phare Astounding Science-Fiction et il privilégie l’aspect scientifique du genre, au point de rejeter certains textes de Bradbury. On ne parle pas encore de hard science, mais la filiation est indéniable. Ce que Dick veut écrire ne correspond pas à ce moule, malgré tout il publie dans des magazines plus ouverts tels que The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, et s’il se sert de la quincaillerie de la science-fiction, c’est pour servir son propos. Après quelques compromis, Dick arrivera à ses fins pour se détacher de ses modèles et proposer la science-fiction originale que l’on connaît – originale pour son époque, avant d’être imitée, puis d’être rattrapée par la réalité, nous y reviendrons. Le jeune Dick aime la science-fiction et les pulps. Il ne s’en cache pas, mais au contact de la communauté intellectuelle de Berkeley, qu’il fréquente quand il est étudiant, il prend également goût pour la « grande littérature » et des auteurs tels que Proust, Flaubert, Stendhal ou Joyce. « J’occupais là deux mondes qui normalement ne se recoupaient pas3 », se souvient- il. La dualité des mondes littéraires est déjà au centre de sa vie. Une fois qu’il a su qu’il serait écrivain, il a eu l’ambition de percer dans la littérature générale, ambition sans lendemain, puisque sur la dizaine de romans qu’il a écrits, un seul sera publié de son vivant, Confessions of a Crap Artist (1974). Un échec qui l’amènera à réinsuffler du mainstream dans sa science- fiction, marquée par un certain manque de rigueur scientifique (on se souvient plus de la fiction 1 « Entretien avec Charles Platt », Jacques Chambon (trad.), p. 271-286, in Richard Comballot (dir.), Philip K. Dick: Simulacres et Illusions, Chambéry, ActuSF, 2015, p. 273. 2 Voir des nouvelles comme « The Father-Thing » (1954), « The Cookie Lady » (1953), « Upon the Dull Earth » (1954), « The King of the Elves » (1953). 3 « Entretien avec Charles Platt », op. cit., p. 273. que de la science), et, diront certains, un souffle de folie. « Dick était fou », jugement facile et réducteur, mais effectivement Dick avait tendance à ne pas réfléchir comme Monsieur tout le monde. La prise d’amphétamines – pour travailler comme un forçat – et de drogues – favorisée par l’époque, les années soixante, et le milieu, la contre-culture – a exacerbé ses tendances paranoïaques et schizophrènes, dont il aimait aussi jouer4. Cette brève contextualisation n’offre qu’un aperçu des modalités créatrices d’un auteur prolifique qui va envahir au propre comme au figuré l’espace science-fictionnel, ce terreau contribuant à créer un cadre fictionnel hétéroclite : au fil du temps, récit après récit, Dick va inventer un monde composite étrange, mélange de réalisme, d’absurde et de cauchemar, un monde où se côtoient le possible et l’impossible, le vécu et le fantasmé, le trivial et le métaphysique. C’est un univers que l’on a qualifié de divergent, désarticulé, incertain, chaotique, mais dans les meilleurs écrits de Dick, c’est un monde qui fonctionne, qui fascine et qui, du point de vue de son créateur, a un but. En effet, Dick se donne un objectif qui finira par tourner à la quête obsessionnelle, c’est de comprendre la nature du monde phénoménal, du « réel », et à terme, d’en donner une définition ; une lourde tâche qui soulève de multiples questions théoriques qui chez Dick, écrivain de science-fiction, genre populaire s’il en est, doivent passer par la représentation s’il veut faire accepter ses choix. Et c’est cette représentation qui fait la saveur de sa fiction, en illustrant de façon littérale diverses interrogations philosophiques ou ontologiques dans des univers imaginaires où les lois de la causalité sont mises à mal. Après avoir consacré une grande part de cet article à ce point, nous nous interrogerons sur le rapport complexe et changeant entre espace réel et monde(s) imaginaire(s) de la science-fiction, car près d’un demi-siècle après que Dick a inventé ces mondes fictionnels, déterminer avec précision lequel des deux a le plus d’emprise sur l’autre s’avère être une tâche de plus en plus ardue. Comment l’imaginaire dickien s’empare de tous les espaces Dick s’empare d’abord de l’espace « réel » de la science-fiction, le paysage éditorial, où sa signature apparait de plus en plus. Le jeune auteur publie quatre nouvelles en 1952, puis vingt-neuf en 1953, vingt-neuf en 1954, et douze en 1955, plaçant des textes dans vingt-trois pulps différents sur cette période, ce qui en dit long sur la santé du genre. Si sa production baisse à partir de 1955, c’est parce qu’il se met au roman, avec la même frénésie, en partie parce qu’écrire de la science-fiction n’est guère lucratif si on ne s’appelle pas Heinlein ou Asimov. Dick publiera ainsi jusqu’à douze romans en quatre ans (1964-1967). Là encore, le contexte réel – économique – a une incidence sur la production de fictions, les chefs d’œuvre côtoyant les textes alimentaires. Sur le papier, Dick s’approprie l’espace imaginaire traditionnel de la science-fiction, celui des planètes lointaines. Pas si lointaines, puisque c’est souvent la planète Mars – ou l’un de ses satellites – qui sert de cadre lorsqu’il a besoin de situer son récit hors la Terre, dans des romans comme The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Time Out of Joint ou The Simulacra5. Il met aussi son empreinte sur l’espace commun, aux deux sens du terme, ordinaire et partagé. C’est la Terre d’un avenir pas très éloigné, peuplée des habituels antihéros dickiens aux prises avec leurs tracas quotidiens, des héros bien petits face aux groupes industriels et aux gouvernements plus ou moins totalitaires qui règnent en maîtres. On a souvent remarqué que ses personnages sont pour la plupart des Californiens et que la société qu’il met en scène ressemble beaucoup à 4 « J’ai passé une fois le Minnesota Multiphasic Test […] et il en est ressorti que j’étais paranoïde, cyclothymique, névrotique et schizophrène […] Mais il apparaissait aussi que j’étais un incorrigible menteur », se plaît à confesser Dick (Ibid.). 5 Voir Marcel Thaon, « La planète Mars de Philip K. Dick », postface à Glissement de temps sur Mars, Paris, Presses Pocket, 1986, p. 295-318. celle de son époque, voire à la banlieue de Berkeley, son port d’attache6. Comme le souligne Marcel Thaon, il y a souvent un clivage marqué entre ces deux mondes, des doubles aux images inversées. La Terre est surpeuplée, trop chaude, trop réglementée, alors que Mars est déserte, froide, et a des allures de Far-West.
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  • Pkd Otaku #20
    PKD OTAKU #20 This is a rather unusual edition of PKD OTAKU. It is a slightly re-written compilation of private correspondence with a group of friends. It goes back as late as 2006 so you’ll see references to old movies such as Scanner Darkly and the Library of America’s edition of Phil’s early novels. Most of it is pretty short and all of it is informal. I thought there might be some material that would interest the typical OTAKU reader (whoever you are) so I pasted it all together, added the usual book reviews and called the whole mess “number 20.” * My friend Jerry wrote this to me in a recent letter: "I've said it before but yes, we are living in Dick's future: oppressive governments, endless distant war, dissembling media, and surreal public spectacle as a distraction. Worse things is, as in Dick's novels, most people are not standing up and saying this is too weird to be believable." * You know I, for one, am not entirely happy that Phil has become a household name in 21st Century culture. I appreciate that this is kind of selfish of me. After all, how can it be a bad thing if more and more people learn about Phil and read his books? I guess my main beef is that it seems as if people know about Phil, if they know about him at all, because of the movies, not for his books. Even though I liked Blade Runner a great deal I never thought it was really very, uh, philidickian.
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